A new method could help resolve the issues about the rate of our universe's expansion.
How fast is our universe expanding? To answer this question, scientists used two different methods and found two answers that are slightly different from each other and that's the source of 'Hubble tension.' Astrophysicists have been divided into two groups, one which thinks this difference in the answers is significant and we need new physics to explain it. Others attribute it to the difference in the methods.
The second method is to look at stars in a nearby universe and measure how fast are they moving away from us. In 2001, Wendy Freedman and her team at the University of Chicago used the Hubble Space Telescope to look at stars called Cepheids. They found the Hubble constant to be 72 km/s/Mpc. Freedman and her team continued to look at Cepheids over the years but in 2019 decided to cross-check their method by looking at stars called 'red giants'. These are very large and luminous stars that reach peak brightness and then fade rapidly. By measuring the actual peak brightness, scientists can measure distances to their host galaxies. But the measurements need to be accurate.
"There is still some room for new physics, but even if there isn't, it would show that the standard model we have is basically correct, which is also a profound conclusion," Freedman added.
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